January 23rd, 2009

Recs

Yes Man is a B-minus movie, but for some reason the music in the film is A++. The actual soundtrack album of the music that plays in the background of the film includes *nine* Eels songs, (including very annoyingly, *one* I don’t have). In addition, there’s tonnes of diagetic music that is way more fun to watch/listen to than the rest of the film. Go fig. But PS–are we offended that there is a band out there called Munchausen By Proxy? I think I am. If a band was named “Child Abuse,” that wouldn’t go over too well, and how is this any different? Their songs are so darn neat, though.

Desk Space is always awesome, but as a literary voyeur herself, Julie Wilson, gives particularly good desk-details.

You wouldn’t think I’d like a blog called Brazen Careerist. In fact, I almost never care about the actual advice being offered, but the woman who writes it, Penelope Trunk, is a very good writer, very funny and generous and *fascinating* on the topic of her own life history, and also quite possibly the woman least like me on the planet. I *love* reading her blog.

I’m going to stop pretending I didn’t break your heart
RR

January 16th, 2009

The guardian of gates and hallways

Obviously, it’s better if your life just doesn’t suck at all, but that can be a tall order in January (if you’ve got it down, and it’s not “move south,” I want to hear your solutions). Sooner or later, spring will arrive and/or we’ll all have to address the actual issues in our lives. Meantime, though, here are some pennyante stop-gap solutions–

–Leave the house. You might well have a good time (Pivot of the last post was even more awesome than expected, as was the birthday dinner and both [gah]) movies I saw this week). Even if you don’t, you get the smugness of saying to people, “It’s minus *twenty*, but y’know, it’s not *that* bad.” Makes you feel tough.
–Go to the movies. Nothing like other people’s problems to make you forget your own. Even (especially?) if their problems are stupid.
–Do the thing you’ve been trying to get out of. Misery has economies of scale, I find. It’s far easier to agree to do something unfun on a day I already hate–I guess I figure things probably can’t get worse, and someone might as well get what they want. Occasionally, this will bloom into getting thanked profusely, which is nice, but don’t count on it; it is January.
–Learn something new: I thought the term “Janus” was a fancy way of calling someone a liar, ’cause he’s the two-faced Roman god, but it turns out that he’s two-faced because he’s looking both forwards and back. Janus is the god of hallways and doors and gates, portals and new beginnings. Which his namesake month, January, allegedly is. We’ll see.
–Whatever you do, don’t wear two pairs of tights of profoundly different waist-levels–the higher one will somehow push the lower one down (and down and down), and you will spend the entire day trying to reach unobtrusively under your skirt to recalibrate things. This final point, which I am currently living out, will probably discourage anyone from taking any of my other advice. So be it.

Your English is good
RR

January 6th, 2009

Happy-Go-Lucky

Ok, the reason I wanted to see Mike Leigh’s film, Happy-Go-Lucky, and the reason a number of people recommended it to me, is because it’s a film about a 30-year-old goofball who likes birds, bookshops, trampolines, bright patterned tights and hanging out with her friends. And I was amply rewarded on all those counts. But as it turned out, I loved the film because it is brilliant, genuine (much of the dialogue was improved), inspiring and true. Watching *Happy-Go-Lucky* made me hopeful for the world, as does the fact that such an ingenuous ingenius little film has received such incredible and universal acclaim.

See it see it see it.

Smile!

It’s all in your head
RR

July 30th, 2008

More cheer

A quicky post of further things to distract you from your woes, if in fact you have any woes from which you need distraction.

–Amusing and insightful: Fred’s wisdom and wit as applied to The X-Files movie
–Sad and sweet: Lydia Millet’s lovely strange short story, Walking Bird at Joyland New York.
–Hilariously tragic: Gonzales’s clever rhyming triplets in Working Together

See, it can be a good day even though it’s raining!

I say real crazy
RR

July 20th, 2008

Addendum

Reviewing is tough! Such is the restrictive nature of the form that yesterday’s review did not even include what I felt was the best bit of my film-going experience: what happened in the women’s bathroom after the show.

It was very crowded and noisy with the post-*Get Smart*, post-theatre-size soda crowd. Above the hubbub, though, I could hear teenaged voices yelling,
“Mira, are you here?”
“Yeah, I’m at the sinks!”
“Are you here?”
“I’m here.”
“If you’re here, I’m gonna come out.”
“Come out!”
“I’m gonna come out.”
If you are not a frequenter of women’s bathrooms in multiplexes, I should point that this is not abnormal aural wallpaper–I barely registered it. I did happen to notice the reunion of Mira with her companion exiting her stall–they turned out, unsurprisingly, to be pretty 17ish girls in shorts and elaborate ponytails. More surprisingly, their greeting to each other was not exchange of whispers and lipgloss, but whispers followed by shrieking and bouncing up and down in a tight embrace.

By this point I was registering the interaction rather accutely, and possibly doing a rather over-thorough job of washing my hands. As I turned, dripping, in search of hand towels, the girls approached me through the crowd (possibly because I was staring at them like a movie screen) and asked me for a tampon, which I gave them. I really feel I gave it to them both, they were such an intimate unit, though I’m sure they weren’t going share.

I don’t know, I was a little pleased to be involved in such a happy ending to a drama I’ll never really know, though I can sort of guess. I don’t really need more information, I don’t think. How much do I adore fluffy goofy teenagers? And how much do I want them not to be pregnant? *So much, both!*

Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard
RR

July 19th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews *Get Smart*

I do not necessarily think that hard about my cinematic choices, and so far that has worked out pretty well. The *entire* reason I wanted to see Get Smart is that Fred mentioned that, at some point in the action, someone drives a car through the doors of the Arts Building at McGill, where we both studied. I am fond of McGill and have entirely happy memories of the Arts Building, but I still thought it would be cool to see someone drive a car through the doors. The fact that popcorn and hilarity might be involved just made the possibility even sweeter!

My companion had actually seen the original TV show and gave me an astute precis of what we might see (shoe phones, physical comedy, Cold War references). As soon as we got into Steve Carell‘s goofball seriousness, though, I felt right at home. This is the sort of action-satire that started with Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther–oh, what do I know about film history, it probably started long before that! But it went right up into my childhood: Leslie Neilson in The Naked Gun, Val Kilmer in Top Secret!, Inspector Gadget in Inspector Gadget: an officious, oblivious, dead-serious bumbler, adrift in a high-tech, high-stakes world he thinks he can defeat, but most certainly can’t. His (these characters are never women, it occurs to me) ineptitude is never revealed to him, because circumstances, dumb luck and quick-thinking friends (oh, Penny and Brain!) always bail him out in the nick.

Carell’s Agent 86 is a little more self-aware than the others I mentioned–he feels some of the sting of failure when he fails, and considerable embarrassment when he notices Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) bailing him out yet again. Carell’s self-awareness and vulnerable ego gives some nice laughs, but he loses others on the physical stuff. I think this guy is not a physical comedian. I haven’t seen a lot of his work, but I understand it to based more on the awkward moment rather than the hilarious pratfall, and *Get Smart* definitely dwelt more on the latter. Yeah, Carell fell down a lot, it just wasn’t all that memorable (I *love* people falling down…in movies, where no one gets hurt)

Anne Hathaway–also not known for her slapstick work! And looking really weird. Her character, Agent 99, is supposed to have had extensive facial reconstructive surgery, but I don’t know why the make-up artists tried to make her look like that. She’s awfully attractive, I’ve seen non-99 pictures (ok, full disclosure, it was The Princess Diaries) and I am sure her face is normally same colour as her neck. I don’t know why it wasn’t here.

Why am I complaining? I liked this movie. The more reviews I write, the more I realized it’s way easier to be grim than Rose-coloured. Hathaway is a fine straight woman for Carell’s awkward deadpan hilarity, and if neither of them can fall down with particular aplomb, The Rock and Alan Arkin sure can. Alan Arkin gets hit in the head with a fire-extinguisher and never lets anyone forget it. Hahaha. No, it’s funny really. And I always forget how much I like the Rock (do you capitalize the “the”, do you think? Is it part of his proper name?) Between movies, it seems like he’s some tall obnoxious wrestler, but he’s actually really goofy and fun–didja see a little gem called The Rundown? No, no you didn’t, nobody did who isn’t a big Seann William Scott fan did, and so that would basically just be me. Nevermind, it was really good. Hey, what was my point?

*Get Smart* is a good movie for not thinking very hard about. I was enjoying myself so much that I actually forgot about the McGill connection, and when the little red car busts through the doors (it comes outta nowhere, there are no previous exteriors at McGill) I bounced in my seat with joy! It was awesome!! Carell drives right past the Three Bares statue off campus to rue Sherbrooke. OMG, so cool.

If you dig that sort of thing, along with the occasional George W. joke and some high-paced action with a train that I didn’t fully understand, you should really go see this movie. I’m also told that it riffs pretty well on the TV show, so that’s good. Really, delightful fluff.

I’ve got this sentimental heart that beats
RR

July 6th, 2008

Onrush

So many lovely new blogs this summer. Shouldn’t everybody be out in the sunshine? Canadians are funny.

Ideal Tigers is the work of musician/scholar/example-to-us-all Ross Hawkins, and it contains examples of all his roles in society, such as this:

“What I want to know is, where have all the fools gone? Where are the jesting ne’er do wells? Where’s Puck? And most importantly, where’s the trickster? In another age, joking might have been a courtly, even stately practice; or it might have been a means of accessing the sacred. Could it really be that pranking now is mostly the business of morons on MTV, office zaniness, or kids beating people up and filming it on their mobile? I hope not, and that’s why I’d be very grateful to be the vicitm of a great divine prank.” (April 1, 2008)

The blog dwells especially on Ross’s one-man dream-factory/band, the Idle Tigers. You could, if you were inclined, see and hear those tigers, this Friday night at the Drake Hotel. It should be the best kind of bizarre.

David Whitton has a blog…website…thing with amusing anecdotes about music, cool/disturbing art (take a real close look at the kissing couple), and most importantly, links to a bunch of his stories. My favourite is “Robin”

“Everyone worked in financial services nowadays. My mom, my dad, my aunts, my uncles, my parents’ friends. Even the Goat worked in a bank when he wasn’t making art films. If you don’t fall off a balcony, you’ll end up in financial services eventually.”

But I’ll let you choose for yourself. I guess this is the other best kind of bizarre. I guess I shouldn’t hierarchize.

Alex Boyd has a new movie-review blog at Digital Popcorn. I can’t much speak to the accuracy of the film reviews, because I have seen exactly one of the dozens he’s reviewed so far (it was Sicko and I agreed with that review 100%). This is another proof of the already impressive thesis that I have crap taste in movies (if I had my life to live over again, I might not see both Harold and Kumar movies, but then again, I might.) But the reviews are a joy to read even if you don’t know the films, because Alex writes like this:

“Some men are cruel and some men are pretty darn OK and just play the harmonica or whatever. And, it’s a pretty darn sad world when the cruel ones get ahead. In the final ten minutes or so the enemy invades, and even our best stock footage doesn’t stop them.” (*From Here to Eternity,” review June 24, 2008)

Even better, he also wrote a beautiful book of poems called Making Bones Walk, which I spent the afternoon reading in the park:

“If I demand of the air that my head turns
back to look at a woman, the air holds my chin,
turns it like a lover.”
from “Shapes of the Air”

There will always be reasons to go out, and reasons to stay in.

I’ll cover you
RR

March 18th, 2008

I like

Am I ever going to get it together to review something? This is the extremely small question of the hour, which I mainly ignore. Until then, here are some things I’ve been uncritically enjoying.

Thom Bryce, of Free Biscuit fame, has a new play called *The Curative* being performed this week by the (pivotal)arts folks at the WriteNow! festival, in conjunction with three other plays that I haven’t seen, but if *The Curative* is a fair sample, are probably brilliant. (Warning: *The Curative* is not for the faint-hearted, in terms of both sex and violence. The word “chilling” comes to mind.)

The joyful music of The Choir Practice. I don’t know what I need more faith in, but this pretty music redeems it all.

Smoked tofu–it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, but it’s delicious (as tofu goes) and little known. Consider it.

Oh, and just to show I can dislike stuff, I didn’t think Lars and the Real Girl was very good, and, worse, gave a simplistic reductive portrayl of both women and the mentally ill.

But really, who am I to say?

You look so good with a gun / but that hat doesn’t suit you
RR

February 6th, 2008

Demands

I have nothing of import to say today, but my friends have questions for you. Over at A Place, Ferd wants to know your Oscar picks for the annual Oscar Derby. I often win, and this year I’ve actually seen several of the movies, so throw your hat into the ring! It’s very entertaining!

Also, my friend Corinna’s writing another article is writing another survey article for CanadianLiving.com, and has queries for you below. If you respond in the comments section here, or send me an email, I’ll pass it on (be sure to include the name you want used!)

I’d like to know what is the best, most unusual (in a good way) or
unexpeted compliment you’ve ever received? I’m not looking for
comments on nice eyes or pretty hair; I’d like to go beyond that and
hear about the complements that brightened your day or really meant
something to you. For example, I was once told I have a great walk!
Unexpected and strange. Perhaps your arch nemesis at work complimented
you on a job well done, or a stranger praised you for how well you
handled your temper-tantrum-throwing two-year-old.

Let me know what the compliment was, and if relevant, what the
circumstances were, who said it, and why it surprised you/meant
something to you. Make sure to include your name (first name only or
pseudonym ok), age and city.

Please get back to me by Wed. Feb. 20th. And pass this along to anyone
who you think might be interested in contributing.

Oh you crazy moon
RR

January 28th, 2008

No particular war

So last night I saw Charlie Wilson’s War and liked it very much. This was not a surprise, as it was written by Aaron Sorkin the writer of my most-loved tv shows. And indeed, the film did contain Sorkin’s much-beloved banter, walk’n’talks, long-shots and high-flown political wonkery. And, as with much of Sorkin’s work, he faltered on the ladies, who were condescendingly drawn on occasion, and also saddled with awkward religious hypocrisy, as if that were just the lot of he fairer sex.

But Julia Roberts fares better than most of Sorkin’s recent lady-stars, in part because he downplays his personal issues to give her some of the best lines in the flick, and in part because she’s Julia Roberts and, dammit, she can make the best of anything, even having her gorgeous hair bleached and sprayed in a seemingly desperate attempt to make it look like a wig. And she’s opposite Tom Hanks, which is such a wonderful pairing of easy charm that I don’t know why no one thought of it before. And how great, too, that a movie that concerns events of the twenty years ago would star people so seminal at that time. Big came out in 1988, one of the first films I saw in theatres, and it filled me with joy to see that maturity and the ability to feed and clothe oneself didn’t matter one whit if you had honesty and enthusiasm. There was hope for me, apparently, to take on the world, as soon as I could get myself to Manhattan.

Julia’s big break, in Pretty Woman didn’t come until a few years later, which is just as well, since even my oblivious parents noticed taglines like, “Who knew it was so much fun to be a hooker?” I did eventually see it, and love it. Even then, I knew there was something wrong with the conceit that the way to a man’s heart was to sell him your body and hope he noticed your soul, and something wrong with a country where a girl could really find herself forced by financial circumstances to do so. Still, even now, if you were to somehow break into the feminist enclave that is my apartment, fix the DVD player and put on *Pretty Woman*, I’d sit down and watch, and swoon. I’d feel dirty about it at first, but then I’d block out the real circumstances presented and just enjoy the banter.

As I did in *Charlie Wilson’s War.* With the office hijinx and even fairly serious arguments, the movie could’ve been about almost anything, because the conversations focused on strategic alliances, media, and money–the necessities of war, of course, but also the necessities of anything. Perhaps because of Sorkin’s history on the small-screen, coupled director Mike Nichols’ reputation as a “poet of the living room (I read that somewhere, possibly The New Yorker), they seemed to want to prove something with the battle scenes. I think they could’ve done the whole thing with radar-screen blips and intense conversations, as Sorkin did on West Wing, as I’ve seen in several deeply unsettling low-budget *Hamlet*s, but they had to show the guns, and that was pretty wretched, half video game, half propaganda film.

It was one thing to show refugee camps, and mangled children’s bodies–eliciting pity, showing the evil that must be stopped (who were those child actors, I wonder). But it could’ve been almost any war, or an informercial with Sally Struthers: the only political message of those scenes was: children good, people who hurt children bad. Then there was a scene, and I still don’t know what I was meant to feel during it, that showed young Russian soldiers piloting planes and strafing villages, killing women and children while talking in Russian over their walkie-talkies about their girlfriends. This is late in the movie, when the Afghan villagers had finally been given shoulder-mounted missile launchers. They are able to destroy the planes before they can do as much damage as they meant to. We get to see the panic on the Russian soldiers’ faces before they are engulfed in flames.

Of course, the villagers had no choice, if in fact it happened that way. I wasn’t rooting for the kids on the ground to die, but I wasn’t particularly rooting for the kids in the air to die, either. Is that a happy moment? Nichols and Sorkin play it as wild celebration for all the good guys.

The only militaristic footage that looked real was actually real–taken from news reports of the time period. And here’s where we get the third star of the period, and the first one of my youth. Before Julia, before Tom, pretty much concurrent with The Muppets, I loved Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News. Every evening at 6:30, since long before I was born, my parents watched “Rather”, and then they had dinner and talked about what they had seen. When I was small, and eagerly awaiting my spaghetti, I watched too, or at least sat around and listened to words I didn’t understand. Years later than excusable, I actually thought Dan Rather was President of the United States, and that every evening they wheeled the cameras into the Oval Office so he could bring anyone who was interested up to date.

Dan’s is one of the first faces we see in this film, and it set me right at ease. I probably haven’t heard his voice since I moved out of my folks’ place, and it was tremendously soothing. I probably actually sat through some of the news reports from the film, though I remembered nothing. And the movie didn’t explain much–the news was for exposition, but precious little of it. I had to come home and google to find out what was going on with the Russians in Afghanistan. Sorkin wasn’t going to explain, make the war weird and particular and complicated, and not just a generic Good v. Evil, with all that stuff. Not that the Russians were so far off the mark of evil in that war, as far as I can tell, but they had some motives, they weren’t just psycotic baby-bombers. For the purposes of the picture though, they could’ve been just any bad dudes in history, or James Bond films.

And it’s funny, because for a movie that so ignores and generalizes the history here, at the end there is an alarming about-face, as the final scenes set the movie up as the history of our present tense, showing the Americans as over-confident in victory and setting in motion the terrible events that are even now occuring in Afghanistan. This takes place a while after the worst of the battle scenes, after a lot more joyful triumph and Roberts-Hanks banter and silly smooches. I was enjoying myself again, I’d been lulled by the semi-facts, that good things had happened in some war somewhere, and that everything was now fine. The end of the film was astounding in that it pointed out the lie of it’s own Hollywood-ishness, and yet I wasn’t sure as I left the theatre that I had really wanted that. I was sort of happy, for a while, to go back to the days when the News wasn’t news of any particular war, it was just the noise in the background before you sat down to supper with the people you loved best.

The body says no
RR